Page 2129 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 May 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
industrialised areas. The evaluation found that while good neighbourhood planning can facilitate community cohesion, interaction and integration, these outcomes are not determined by the physical design alone.
Creating the right mix of housing type and tenure plays a significant role in creating sustainable communities and developing appropriate community infrastructure which combines people, places and buildings. This is vital for achieving vibrant and cohesive communities. Steve outlined the key themes or building blocks that contribute to socially sustainable cities.
The first was the layout and design. The features that contribute to this theme include physical activity, diversity, local jobs, accessibility and safety. Second was gathering places and amenity. The management of open spaces is important here. And third, so-called third places such as village greens and community hubs, where people can just hang out and spend time rather than money. Steve added that it was important to incorporate flexible, adaptable and incremental infrastructure—the so-called “meanwhile places” or temporary space infrastructure. Finally, while it is necessary to plan new suburbs and cities with social sustainability in mind, Steve submitted that planning should not be so rigid that it inhibits flexibility or impedes the community’s ability to change and evolve.
Tamara Lowen from the McCaughey VicHealth Centre for Community Wellbeing outlined her project on identifying an indicator of access to services by older people with the aim of contributing to a body of knowledge on age-friendly cities. Community indicators serve a variety of purposes including promoting knowledge and engaging with the community; providing objective data to government bodies; assisting in measuring the responsiveness, effectiveness and accountability of councils; and promoting informed, engaging and integrated community planning and policy making.
For those interested in looking at this issue further, the community indicators Victoria website includes an integrated set of community wellbeing indicators to present data and reports on the wellbeing of Victorians. One of the noteworthy results of Tamara’s project was that the local government areas in Victoria’s south west and central west have the fewest services per 1,000 people over 65. But worryingly, these LGAs also have the highest density of people over 65. Tamara’s recommendations included using the indicator she developed to start discussions between communities and policy makers and to integrate the aspirations of older people into general policy.
Unfortunately, it was impossible for us to attend all of the presentations in what was a very comprehensive and event-filled three days, but I would like to mention a few of the other topics covered at the conference. Those include designing healthy cities, developing child-friendly communities, new approaches to development controls and balancing urban infill with greenfield development.
Dr Bourke and Mr Wall will outline their participation in the urban renewal and urban growth study tours. But I will just mention that we also had a masterclass devoted to planning with native title, which looked at the work of planners in remote Australia, their interaction with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video